The Big Book of Canadian Hauntings. John Robert Colombo
was one, made an entry in their notebooks of the occurrence and exact date. Some months after this, by the first mail from England that could bring it, came the news that the sister had died at the very time of the vision, having on her deathbed expressed a strong wish to see her brother, and to leave two young children in his charge.
STRANGE PREMONITION OF IMPENDING FATE
We have been informed by a strange coincidence in the death of the late Alderman McPherson, which involves the mysterious to such a degree as to make it one of those unaccountable illusions which sometimes occur as a prescient to some impending fate. The facts abound so much in the marvellous, that, were they not given on the undoubted authority of the bereaved widow, who now is left to mourn the loss of him whose death was so strikingly revealed to her, we should not attempt to rehearse them. On the Thursday night previous to his death, the deceased gentleman was awakened by the continued sobbing of his wife, whose cries, though asleep, were distinctly audible to several of the inmates of the house. Awakening her he inquired the reason of her incessant moaning, when she informed him that she had had a dream, in which she saw the two gentlemen, who were afterwards the first to tell her the sad news, enter the house and actually inform her of his death. Every circumstance was so vivid, that she remarked it as something peculiar, and besought him on the Saturday morning, when he went away, to be careful of himself, as she felt confident that something unusual would shortly occur. True, in her premonition, he never returned alive, and on the Rev. Mr. Scott and his friend Mr. Lester, entering her house on the same evening, to inform her of his death, she did not wait for their announcement, but holding up her hands in despair, said, “Is he dead?” and without waiting for an answer, fell exhausted on the floor. The sad coincidence of the actual circumstances as they occurred, with the dream, marks it one of the strangest on record. — London C.W. Prototype.
Moose Jaw Times, October 4, 1895
Not many years ago, people used to sneer at ghosts and ghost stories much more than they do now, and one would constantly hear people whisper to one another (while some individual was relating his or her experience): “Ah! it is very odd that these ghost stories should always be related at second or third hand. Now, I want to see a person who personally has seen the ghost, and then I will believe!”
Yes! People are more accustomed to hearing about ghosts now; and yet, even now, should it be a wife, daughter, or sister who ventures to narrate some supernatural experience, she is pooh-poohed, or laughed at, or told to “take a pill.”
Now, I have seen a ghost — and am prepared to attest most solemnly to the fact, as well as to the truth of every word here set down. I have, of course, avoided names, but nothing else; so, without further preamble, I will state my case.
Some years ago I became the object of the infatuated adoration of a person of my own age and sex; and I use the word infatuated advisedly, because I feel now, as I did at the time, that neither I nor any mortal that ever lived could possibly be worthy of the overwhelming affection which my poor friend lavished upon me. I, on the other side, was not ungrateful towards her, for I loved her in return very dearly; but when I explain that I was a wife and the mother of young children, and that she was unmarried, it will easily be understood that our devotion to each other must of necessity be rather one-sided; and this fact caused some dispeace between us at times.
For many years my friend held a post at Court, which she resigned soon after she began to know me; and although her Royal Mistress, in her gracious kindness, assigned two houses to her, she gave them both up, to be free to live near me in B ---- ; indeed, she gave up relatives, old servants and comforts in order that she might come and live (and die, alas!) in lodgings, over a shop, near me. But she was not happy. She “gloomed” over the inevitable fact that, in consequence of the difference in her home-circumstances and mine, I could not be with her every day, and all day long. I think she was naturally of an unhappy disposition, being deeply, passionately, and unjustifiably jealous, and also painfully incapable of taking things and people as they were. All this gave me often much annoyance; but we were all the same, sometimes very cheerful and happy together, and sometimes — the reverse.
Later on, she, poor soul, was taken ill, and during months of fluctuating health I nursed her — sometimes in hope, sometimes without — and at moments during her illness she found strange comfort in foretelling to me, after the most “uncanny” fashion, things which she declared would happen to me after her death. They were mostly trivialities — little episodes concerning people and things over whom and which we had talked and laughed together for she was gifted with a keen sense of the ridiculous.
Amongst other things, she said to me one afternoon: — “This bazaar for which we are working” (she had been helping me for weeks for a charity bazaar, and I can now see her dainty little hands, as she manipulated the delicate muslin and lace. Poor, poor L ... !) “I shall be dead before it takes place, and I shall see you at your stall, and on one of the days of the bazaar, an old lady will come up to you and say: ‘Have you any of poor Miss L ... ’s work?’ (mentioning me). And you will answer, ‘Yes! here is some!’ and you will show her this which I am working, and she’ll say, ‘Have you any more?’ and you’ll say, ‘Yes’ again; and she’ll carry it all off, and say she buys it for ‘poor Miss L ... ’s sake.’ And I shall know and see it all!”
I remember repeating, wonderingly, “What lady?”
She answered dreamily, “Oh! I don’t know — but — some old lady! You’ll see!”
And I am bound to say, this is exactly what occurred at the bazaar, months after her death; an old lady, with whom I was not acquainted, did buy all her work, having asked for it, and carrying it away “for her sake!” An old lady, too, whom I had never seen.
One other curious circumstance which attended her death was that, after looking forward with more than usual pleasure to my coming birthday (which she said would be “a more than commonly happy anniversary”), that was the very day on which she died!
I think that one of the sharpest regrets which I ever experienced in my life consisted in the fact that I was not with my dearest friend at the moment that she passed away. She had made me promise that I would be with her at the time, and, God knows, I had the fullest intention of fulfilling her wish, but on that very evening, of all others I was called away, and she died in my absence. I had been sitting by her bed-side all the afternoon, and all that evening I had held her dear hand, and had kept whispering comforting words in her ear; but latterly she had made no response, and was, seemingly, unconscious.
Suddenly a messenger came from my house (not a hundred yards, it was, away), saying my husband wanted me at once, as one of my children was ill. I looked at the nurse, who assured me there was “nothing immediate” impending; so, stooping over my poor friend, I whispered — at the same time pressing a kiss on her forehead — that “half an hour should see me at her side again.” But she took no notice, and much against my will I hastily, and noiselessly, left the room.
Throwing a shawl over my head I hurried across the square, and as I passed the church the clock struck twelve, and I suddenly remembered that — to-day was my birthday!
I got back in less than half an hour, and on my return heard, to my everlasting sorrow, that I had not been gone ten minutes before my dear L--- became restless and uneasy, then suddenly starting up in her bed, she looked hastily around the room, gave a cry, then there came a rush of blood to her mouth, and after a few painful struggles, she sank back, gasped once or twice, and never moved again.
Of course, I thought then, and do to this day, that she was looking round the room for me, and that she had died feeling I had broken my faith with her. A bitter, never-failing regret!
I have given this slight sketch of the feelings which existed between me and my poor friend (before narrating the circumstances of her supernatural visit to me), just to emphasize the facts of the alluring